The Wild Space In Between

Sometimes I can totally relate to those unfortunate characters on Star Trek who find themselves in a time warp continuum. It's a place where time and space kind of don't factor any more, and everything seems like forever and a second all at once. Between Asia is like that for me.

Can it really be that in just six days I'll be getting back on a plane heading to Thailand?

Flashback. I'm sitting on the runway in Chiang Mai, my gut in knots from the goodbye I have just endured. What have I done to my heart? After two weeks with the orphans at Hot Springs, I am not sure I remember where I end and they begin. And now I am about to fly as far away from them as geographically possible, to the other side of the world. I do NOT want to leave them.

The pain is physical, in my chest and stomach and arms. The engine roars and so does something deep inside of me. How is this happening? Why is this okay? When did 15 children I didn't know exist two years ago, become part of my inner sanctum? Six months. That's how long I will have to wait to see them again. And the plane lifts off and I honestly can't remember ever being so wrenched away.

Six months. On Tuesday the six months is over. How did that happen? When did it happen?

We are travelling as three this time. George Gabber, one of Highview's Elders and an odd mix of completely serious and seriously fun. Starr Bramer, year two of university under her belt, ready to be pushed out of her zone. We'll go to Hot Springs Orphan Home and love and encourage our kids. (Jen Connor will have her very own adventure in June. More on that later.)

April 28 to May 15, a little more than two weeks all included (with travel time). We're bringing gifts and treats and chess and nail polish and frisbees and open hearts to love bumblingly midst the language and cultural cross over. We're excited and anxious and ready and unprepared.

And it's Tuesday that we leave. Tuesday.

Tutu (Thailand Director of Ministry for Asia's Hope) and I have written frequently since that first visit in February of 2008. Recently we chatted about this visit, and I told her that all the sum of the events of the past 11 months have left me with a certain kind of weariness. Not sad, except very sad. Not discouraged, except bewildered some. Not in want, except empty in some places. I told her that I was so looking forward to the "filling up" of our time together. I said that I hoped she and I could have some good 'conversations' about our life and leadership as women in ministry. She wrote back and reassured me, "You will know my heart."

I'm packing. I'm driving around imagining the greeting at the airport. I am practicing how I will say my hellos. I can't wait to kiss the faces and give out candy.

I will abandon myself once again to the wild space in between the space of my life.